Purpose: Alkali metal ablation is newly emerging as an effective, economic and minimally invasive ablation therapy. This study is dedicated to demonstrate the high efficiency of NaK alloy ablation on in vivo tumors with different stages in mice.
Material and methods: Panc02 tumor cells were injected into 21 female C57B/L mice, which were divided into three groups. Two experimental groups of mice received the same percutaneous NaK alloy injection for a week apart. The inner temperature response and surface temperature distribution were measured using a thermal couple and an infrared camera. After each ablation experiment, two mice in each group were chosen randomly to make pathological sections. The tumor volumes were measured once every two days. At the end, all tumors were cut off to calculate the tumor inhibition rates.
Results: The NaK alloy-induced ablation therapy produced an obvious temperature increase (85 °C) in the ablation region and the high temperature distribution was relatively concentrated. The histopathology sections showed that developing stage tumors received incomplete destruction of the malignant cells compared with early stage tumors. The tumor inhibition rate in the early and developing tumor treatment groups were 88.5% and 67.6%, respectively.
Conclusions: This technology provides a nearly thorough ablation treatment for early stage tumors and also a palliative treatment for developing tumors.
Keywords: NaK alloy; Tumor hyperthermia; minimally invasive therapy; thermal ablation; tumor stage.